Author Archives: Kenny Lamm

We are shortly going to be starting a series of copyright articles with some help from CCLI but in the meantime here is a great article our friend Kenny Lamm over at Renewing Worship has shared with us.

We’ll let you read the article first and at the end we’ve added some comment on how this differs in the UK and also some insight into how Musicademy and Worship Backing Band do their licensing.

How to legally create a CD without getting into trouble with copyright

If you want to record or distribute a song that you do not own or control, U.S. Copyright Law requires that you get a mechanical license. This is required regardless of whether or not you are selling the copies that you make. If your church wants to produce a CD with songs for distribution or sale, the process of tracking down all the licenses you need may be very time consuming. (See this post and the one following it for more copyright information.)

Many distributors and online music sites require that you have a mechanical license in place before they duplicate your recording or offer it online. If you want to do the work yourself, there are some helpful resources listed later in this post.

A few organizations will take care of most of the leg work for you. You will pay them a service fee PLUS all license fees (royalties) owed to the copyright owners. Here are three of the bigger players: Read More »

As East City Church transitions its worship service to a unified style of worship (see links below for the previous parts in this “documentary”), they will need to help their congregation understand why the church is going through a change in its time of corporate worship. Conflict results most times in an absence of understanding why the church is experiencing change. It is imperative that members are aware of the biblical, missional, sociological, and other reasons that change is occurring. It is also important that the church be continually exposed to the fact that worship change is coming and why throughout the weeks leading up to the target date of the new service. I have several suggestions that will help guide ECC in this endeavor:

As East City Church transitions its worship service to a unified style of worship (see links below to catch up on the story), they will need to help their choir to catch a vision for becoming a worship-leading choir. ECC already has a great choir, but in the style of worship that is currently in place, the choir is often a centerpiece, singing many selections and often leading to a spectator role of the congregation.

In renewing worship through a worship transition, the choir needs to be re-visioned to a worship-leading choir whose chief purpose is to worship and help set an environment to lead the congregation in worship.

Today, I want to address the first of several things that churches can do to produce spectators for worship: some churches get so involved in producing “special music” segments that they seem to have little time left for the congregation to sing. Now I agree that a stirring solo, choir special, or instrumental arrangement can be worshipful for all and is a great sacrifice of praise for those presenting the music, and many times, the congregation can worship vicariously through the song. But what I see time after time is a emphasis on non-congregational music while pushing out time and opportunities for the congregation to be involved. And when it comes to congregational singing, we should spend as much time making sure that the arrangements we use to lead our congregation are as special and prepared as anything we do for “special” music. Think of the congregation as your most important musical group. Read More »

Part 7 in our Transitioning to contemporary worship series.

As East City Church transitions its worship service to a unified style of worship (see links below to previous articles in this series), they will need to identify people to serve on the vocal team in worship. ECC already has vocalists that sing in their contemporary service, but in the effort to transition the traditional service to a unified style of worship, it would be best to add additional vocalists that the traditional service would recognize as “their own.” This is a continuation of the effort to prevent an “us” and “them” mentality in worship.

8 considerations for sourcing and serving vocalists:

Can they sing? Do they have a pleasant tone and can sing in tune?

Do they have good stage presence? You aren’t looking for a performer but some degree of confidence will really help.

Will they help evoke worship, not stifle it through their body language or singing

Can they sing in a contemporary style? Traditional, classically-trained singers will not help your transition to a more modern approach. Watch out for exessive use of vibrato. A more “clipped” style is more appropriate. Musicademy’s vocal training DVDs are a great help here.

Keep the group small. just a lead and an alto or tenor is fine. I would use no more than three or four singers. Remember that vocalists can be used on a rotational basis and the more experience they get the better they will become.

Provide vocal coaching on more contemporary styles of singing for those that need assistance.

A natural place to start the search would be in the existing choir at ECC, but it is important to search the congregation for potential singers as well.

Consider the potential singer’s walk with the Lord and the example they set; do not underestimate how important this factor is in selecting worship leadership.

What are some additional guidelines you would use in selecting vocalists?

Next time, I will look at the need for ECC to cast vision for the new role of the choir. Read More »

As East City Church transitions its worship service to a unified style of worship (see story), they will need to equip their musician resources to handle contemporary styles of music in addition to the traditional styles that they do so well. Fortunately, ECC already has a worship band that leads worship in the contemporary early service. This will make the journey potentially much smoother than would be the case if all had to be developed from scratch.

Here are some of the points they need to consider:

Determine which of the members of the early service worship band will be willing to serve in the new unified worship service.ECC plans to continue its early contemporary service at this time. In order to avoid creating too much additional work, the music in both services could be coordinated to have as much overlap as possible.

Discover other potential instrumentalists who attend ECC but are not currently using their musical gifts in worship.Evaluate the potential players to see if they can adequately handle the musical demands. Seek out who God has placed in your church and find ways to utilize those talents.

Determine if any additional players are needed that are critical to your needs.Poll existing musicians to see if they know of any instrumentalists that might be interested in becoming a part of the group. Ideally, you will at least have drums, keyboard (your current pianist will fit the bill), bass guitar, and guitar. Incorporating additional guitars, hand percussion, winds, and strings can be a great addition as well. Read More »